Rating: ★★★ + .5 | Release Date: 06/30/18 | Contemporary | 336 pages | Berkley
I know this book needs no introduction, I’m not sure how it’s doing sales wise but the publicity for this book in and out of the romance community has been staggering.
Autistic econometrician Stella Lane’s parents want her to finally settle down but she is not sure she’s girlfriend material, so Stella hires escort Michael Phan to give her a few girlfriend lessons; but in the end, they both get schooled in matters of the heart.
Fake relationships have been my jam lately and I enjoyed this book overall, Stella was an entirely unpredictable character and Hoang did such a great job developing the character of Michael and building his backstory. I did have a few side eye moments about how little nuance there was about the industry of sex work and sexual harassment in the workplace This didn’t take away from the overall story but it did give me pause
I listened to part of this on audio and was kind of meh on it, I thought the narrator’s performance of Michael made him sound meaner than he came across in the text.
It was just announced this was going to be a movie and I formerly submit they cast Luca James Lee from this season of The Bold Type as Michael. I believe he’s biracial like the character in the book.
